Cake
by prepare4trouble
Summary: On Sam's birthday, Edgar and Alan tell him why they no longer celebrate theirs. My entry for the Marked by the Boys birthday challenge.


This was my entry for the Birthday Challenge over at Marked by the Boys

**Cake**

Sam sat on the kitchen table, one leg resting on the seat of a chair, the other swinging restlessly back and forth. "So you mean to tell me that you guys have never had a birthday?" he asked in disbelief.

Edgar and Alan exchanged a glance then looked back at him wearing identical expressions of scorn. "Of course we have," Alan told him.

"Only bloodsuckers don't have birthdays," Edgar added. He picked up a wooden spoon from the kitchen surface and jabbed at the air in front of him, miming staking a vampire.

"Do you think they have deathdays though?" Sam asked. "Like celebrating the day they turned into vampires?"

Edgar shuddered. "Jesus. I hope not, can you imagine what kind of a party that'd be? Murder, ritual sacrifice. Corpses piled up like empty bottles..."

"Anyway," said Alan, more to change the subject than anything else, "we do have birthdays, we just don't celebrate them."

"Oh." Sam slid off the table, disarmed Edgar of the wooden spoon and threw it in the basin with the rest of his mom's baking stuff, "Well that's just wrong. Why not?"

Alan grimaced. "Edgar's 8th birthday," he said so dramatically that Sam could tell there was a story behind it. He turned and stared, waiting to hear it. "He had a party. Everyone from school came to our house. We played games, had cake, it was fun."

"Uh hum?" Sam nodded.

"Well, I guess our mom forgot what she was doing while she was making the cake, because she used the recipe for her space cake instead."

Sam frowned, "What's that?"

"It's cake," Edgar told him, "but with cannabis baked in it."

Sam's mouth opened in surprise which quickly morphed into amusement. "Seriously, she did that? You're not making this up?"

Alan shook his head. "Everyone ate it. We all had a great time, but when their kids got home the other parent's weren't too happy about it. A few months later when my birthday came around, no one was allowed to come."

Sam tried not to laugh, but it was an impossible task.

"It's not funny." Edgar told him, arms crossed, glaring at the other boy.

Alan shrugged, "It kind of is. Now, anyway."

"We prefer it this way, anyway," Edgar told him. "A bunch of kids all in one place at night around here? You're just asking for trouble."

"Not to mention we're not exactly the most popular kids in school. That party has turned into a kind of legend around town, people would kill for a repeat of it now. But even with that on our record I doubt anyone would come if we invited them."

"Ingrates," muttered Edgar, "all the times we saved their asses. They should be throwing us a parade."

Sam tried to think of one of Edgar's almost certainly made up stories of monster slaying that matched that statement, but nothing came to mind. "When did you save their asses?" he asked.

"When we took out the vampire gang at your house," Edgar told him. "If they were still around, any one of those kids could have been dinner by now."

Alan shook his head doubtfully, "That doesn't exactly count, Ed. It was only one time and there's no way to know who would have been attacked, if any of them would."

"Not the point. We potentially saved every single kid at that school."

Sam threw an arm around Edgar's shoulder, he shook it off quickly and glared at the other boy. Unperturbed, Sam slung his other arm around Alan's shoulders instead, "Well, I appreciate you guys. That's why you're the only ones coming to my party."

"Sure it is." Edgar rolled his eyes.

"Yeah Sam, we know we're the only ones coming because you haven't started school yet. We're the only people you know."

Sam shrugged, "Maybe that's technically true. But hey, by the time you guys' birthdays come around I'm going to own that school, and I'll throw you the biggest party ever."

At the sound of his mom calling from the other room, he got up and wandered out of the kitchen. Alan turned to his brother. "Own the school? After what we just told him, do you think he hasn't realized that hanging out with us is social suicide?"

Edgar shook his head, "I dunno, he's not that smart. We'll hold him to his promise anyway, I want my party."

Alan laughed, "I thought a big party would be a target for vampires."

"Exactly." Edgar picked up the inexpertly wrapped present he had made for Sam, the brightly colored paper did nothing to hide the fact that it contained a large wooden stake. He brandished it in front of himself dramatically, "We'll get to save everyone's asses, and this time we'll get appreciated for it. And make half the school into believers in the process."

"Sounds great," said Alan doubtfully.

Edgar grinned as he leaned against the table. "Oh, it will be..."


End file.
